Archive for April, 2010

On April 22, Treaty Energy Corporation, a growth-oriented energy company in the oil and gas industry, announced entering into a 50\50 Joint Venture Agreement with Princess Petroleum Limited, a Belize company engaged in the business of exploration, development and production of crude oil and natural gas.

The new business venture will implement exploration, drilling, and production of oil and gas from both onshore and offshore blocks in Belize.

Princess Petroleum Limited received one of 17 concessions from Belizean government to explore for oil and natural gas. As part of the joint venture Treaty Energy Corporation will have the right to explore for oil and gas on a total of 2 000 000 acres – 1 800 000 acres of offshore exploration, and 200 000 acres of onshore exploration. Treaty is planning to start drilling by July 1, 2010.

Currently there is one company, Belize Natural Energy Ltd., actively exploring its onshore concession, which started exploration in 2005 and as of May 2009 it is producing an average of 5000 barrels of high grade crude oil per day out of 10 wells that they have drilled.

Belize professionals should be informed on the various trade and corporation agreements that are effective on the bilateral, regional and international levels.

On April 16, the Belize Coalition of Service Providers hosted a Regional Trade Agreements and Mutual Recognition Agreements (MRA) Sensitization Workshop that took place at the Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) in Belize City. The workshop provided a forum for Belizean businessmen to widen their knowledge on the relevant international trade agreements.

One of the key elements discussed at the event was Mutual Recognition Agreements or MRAs. According to the Belize Coalition of Service Providers, these are legally binding agreements that guarantee recognition of the qualifications and market access rights of one professional in the territory of the other.

Recent Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEAs) that were signed by Belize have shored up the international reputation of this offshore jurisdiction as well as have brought it nearer to implementing the internationally-agreed standard in transparency and tax information exchange.

A number of agreements have been concluded by Belize with G20 members in recent weeks. Also, Belize has initialled several more.

Agreements with 11 other countries have been initialed by the jurisdiction. These were Ireland, Italy, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Greenland, Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Mexico, and Aruba. These agreements will be formally signed as soon as these 11 countries have completed their internal procedures.

Also, the government of Belize is in negotiations with the US and Poland.

To receive a place on the OECD white list, the Belizean government must conclude a total of 12 TIEAs that comply with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) standard.

On April 1, Australia’s Assistant Treasurer, Nick Sherry, announced that in its efforts to achieve greater transparency in tax matters gather pace the country has signed 7 Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEAs).

One of the 7 new agreements was signed by Australia with Belize. Also, on March 30 and 31, Australia signed TIEAs with the Cayman Islands, the Bahamas, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Lucia, and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

With these 7 agreements, Australia now has TIEAs with 22 overseas jurisdictions.